Stutter / jitters whilst panning

[Peter Berg]

Hi all - avid reader - don't post much.

However, I need some expert opinion on some footage. I've been trying to get a smooth image when panning - and no mater how slow I go, I get 'jumpy' footage. I've tried everything I can think of - now it's over to anyone who can help.

Here's what I've tried. slow pan / different body / different lenses / faster CF cards / different tripod and resistance levels / varied encoding and so on. It seems like there's too much info writing onto the card, so it stalls a bit, then catches up.

Here's some test footage - most noticeable on the panning. Kinglake after the fires... on Vimeo

I have more obvious tests with traffic going past and faster pans - if you this would highlight the issue better (can post if needed).

Appreciate a guru or two to take a look and let me know what you think.
cheers
peter berg

[Chris Hurd]

Peter -- which lens (or lenses) are you using?

[Tom Hardwick]

You're using a camera designed for use in a 60 Hz mains country in a country that uses 50 Hz mains, so you've got 60 frames to show in the space allocated for 50. Could this be the cause?

[Chris Hurd]

*slapping forehead* -- why didn't I think of that? Peter, have you tried transcoding to 25p?

[Pete Bauer]

Hmmm, I don't think 50Hz is the issue. Once the DC power comes out of the computer's PSU, the rest of the components and software don't really care what the service voltage is. A 30.00fps video is being processed on a 30fps (29.97?) timeline. I'm in a 220v/50Hz country right now using Adobe CS4 on a laptop from the US and shooting with an NTSC Canon HF10 set on 30psf/sec NTSC. I have no trouble with stuttering video. Your footage was shot outside so 50Hz lighting recorded at 30fps isn't at issue. Seems TOO staccato to be stickiness in the tripod during panning.

The stuttering on the Vimeo sample appears random rather than cyclical so my off the cuff guess is an encoding problem -- perhaps frames repeated or skipped due to fragmented hard drive, slow processor, anti-virus or other background software, software encoding bug, or whatever.

A few questions to try determining at what stage the problem lies...do you see the stutter when:

- Playing the raw footage in a media player (eg QT)?
- If you encode to SD and play the resulting file?
- Only when viewing on Vimeo?
- What are your hardware and software editing environment and settings?

[Eric Darling]

I'm not seeing it - at least not endemic to the pan shots. I see it on the rack focus, as well as the tilts. Are you sure this is not the poor implementation of H.264 inside Flash that Adobe uses? I think it's fair to say I see A LOT of Vimeo vids with this issue.

[Bill Binder]

If you have an IS lens, make sure IS is off or in Mode 2.

(UPDATE: I originally wrote mode 1, I meant mode 2 for panning, sorry.)

[Osmany Tellez]

I still get jumps in the image...even with the latest firmware..

will try to make notes of when and how it happens..but I remember seing the jump just by trying to find focus..50mm/1.4 ...but i belive i saw it in pannings too..

[Chris Hurd]

The gist of my first reply here was that it might be related to IS, depending on which lens you're using...
Bill Binder offers excellent advice above: turn IS off or put it on mode 2 when shooting from a tripod.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Peter Berg

I've been trying to get a smooth image when panning - and no mater how slow I go, I get 'jumpy' footage.

I'm one of the first to notice "jumpiness" from "low" framerate video and other than a TINY bit of judder here and there (most noticeable at 1m10), I'd say that is a SUPERB example of good progressive scan video. (I shoot 720P60 to "avoid" motion judder artifacts). I agree that one should try to achieve the highest quality possible but I'd suggest you're off to an excellent "start" here.

[Marten Dalfors]

Originally Posted by Peter Berg

no mater how slow I go, I get 'jumpy' footage. I've tried everything I can think of - now it's over to anyone who can help.

What shutterspeed are you shooting with?

[Peter Berg]

Thanks guys for your responses. Here's some more info.

Lens used on these shots was the Canon 24-70/2.8 - so no IS used here.
Tripod was a manfrotto with a video head (very smooth) so no sticky tripod issues.
Mains power not used when shooting. Stutters are seen AS I SHOOT, as well as playback on the camera (so independent of mains power)
Stutters still obvious in the following situations (on apple laptops (x2 different ones) and a MacPro tower)
- raw footage (played in quicktime at full and half size)
- streamclipped transcode using XDCAM EX 1080p 30 (35VBR)
- 25fps compressor transcode (ticked : "so source frames play at 25fps") - tried both AppleProRes and HDV1080p compression
- SD transcode in compressor - to 720x576

here's my hardware / software
FCPro 6.0.6
Mac Pro 2x2.8GHz quad core / 10gig ram / os 10.5.8
5DMkII - updated firmware. SanDisk extreme IV CF card. 24-70lens. (still does the same with my 17-40L and 70-200/2.8 (with IS on and off).

For this edit (on vimeo) I transcoded via streamclip - placed files onto a 29.97fps timeline using the XDCAM HD 1080p30 sequence preset.

Most of the shots I did were on Manual Setting, with a shutter speed of 50 - auto ISO, and adjusted aperture - the last shot however is 1000 shutter speed (I made audio comments as I was shooting). The raw footage of the last shot (20MB - 3 sec clip) is available from www.eyedear.com.au/clients/MVI_9672_original.mov if you want a good look.

I'll post another example on vimeo shortly. (here it is) http://vimeo.com/6153929

This has got me stumped - so any advice is very very welcome
cheers

[Marten Dalfors]

This is just a wild idea. I assume you use Canon lenses. If you twist the lense a few mm so the elctronics get disconnected between the camera body and lens. The aperature should say 00. If you want an aperature smaller than wide open you can press the DOF button while twisting. Then do a panning with a shutterspeed of 60.

The reson for this wild guess is that i have seen footage like that while zooming even if i'm in full manual with the new firmware. The only way to get rid of if was to disconnect the lens. Now, I know you are not zooming, but I thought that there might be som signal coming from the lens "disturbing" the camera.

[Pete Bauer]

Well, if it shows during shooting and in the raw video, it isn't a post-production issue. It is either the tripod or the camera -- and it doesn't look like tripod. I looked at the other Vimeo clip and the stutter is really pretty bad. Glad to say that I haven't experienced that but sorry I have no idea why it is happening.

[Harry Simpson]

Pete,

I've found Vimeo has some jerkiness in their re-render of my videos. I used to submit WMVs but have switched to a more Vimeo compatible MP4 format but haven't tested a resubmit of my previously jerky panning movies. I did finfd that the exact same movie uploaded to YouTube played and looked better and i could play this from my computer or from YouTube and it was less jerky.

I guess how does it look on your computer in a viewer? Maybe try to upload a version to YouTube to see if the differing processing is causing this to be exagerated...

Interested to see what your results are

Harry